


That Which Cannot Die

by Getit199, LogicalPremise



Series: Premiseverse [3]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 09:04:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7428547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Getit199/pseuds/Getit199, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogicalPremise/pseuds/LogicalPremise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My AU retelling of the events in ME2, with a completely new take on Cerberus, the Shadow Broker, and the Collectors. Examines the themes of what exactly constitutes death and life, the line between revenge and self-hatred, and how small amounts of light can shine in every darkness. Not a happy ending. Includes my takes on Overlord and LofSB. Rated M for language and violence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N and Intro:
> 
> Welcome to OSABC II : That Which Cannot Die.
> 
> TWCD is a continuation of my AU rewrite of Mass Effect 1, titled "Of Sheep and Battle Chicken". This story covers the period of time from Shepard's death and the recovery of her body, the entirely of Mass Effect Two, and my own take on the DLC.
> 
> I'll warn you right now: when I say AU I mean fucking AU. I have taken a shotgun to canon in every possible way, and if you think I changed things up in the first and second stories, oh gawd.
> 
> That means you will be completely lost if you haven't read the first two stories – and if you click my profile, you can see other supporting documentation that fleshes out the back-story of the universe, such as the Cerberus Files, the Systems Alliance Order of Battle, and the Encyclopedia Biotica.
> 
> None of these are required reading, but if you ever wonder why salarians operate in bullet-time, asari have biotic lightsabers, Cerberus can run a taco stand, and the entire universe is a vile, conspiracy ridden shithole that makes 40k look like My Little Pony...you may wish to check them out.
> 
> In case the story summary eluded you, this is Fshep/Liara. There are other pairings, but it's not a romance fic. (Sorry ladies. If nimraj12 asks me real nice I might try my hand at a gushy romance, but it would have to be Mshep/Miri or Fshep/Kaiden for me to pull it off.) The other pairings are rarely if ever conventional – you'll see things like Joker/Tali, Chakwas/von Grath (finally), Jack/Morinth, and the first actual Kasumi/Taylor that is more than Kasumi-chan pervving on Taylor's abs.
> 
> Things you will see is a different take on Shepard's resurrection, the Council's reaction to said resurrection, the Alliance still acting like assholes, and a much more intelligent plan to the Collector attacks than "hurr durr throw yourself through a relay that kills everyone lolzors". Goddammit, Bioware. You'll also see some pretty hectic fighting, but more of a focus on exploring, on learning about the characters, and about the Reaper threat.
> 
> And of course, god-stomping the crap out of batarians. That never gets old.
> 
> Things you will not see include a stupid Council, moronically evil Cerberus, weak-ass turians, or pretty much anything that Bioware half-assed. The story runs on the Rule of Crazy Awesome, so in game terms the setting is a mix between Insanity and Easy.
> 
> It's also a story about the difference between revenge and justice.
> 
> As an aside: This is rated M for strong language and heavily violence. While there are a number of sexual innuendos, there are no explicit sex scenes in this work. Given my version of Shepard's proclivities, that's probably for the best. Nothing is MA (and if you think something is, let me know and I can take it out. NO, there will NOT be lemons or any of that shit off site, do you know what the hell Shepard's kinks involve? Ugh.)
> 
> As with ATTWN, there are five arcs.
> 
> The first arc is something of a prologue, going over what the major characters are doing, framing the setting, and allowing me to explain just how in hell you can bring the dead back to life.
> 
> The second arc covers the 'primary mission' – figure out what the hell the Collectors are up to.
> 
> The third arc is sort of my take on Lair of the Shadow Broker. This is going to be where the rule of Crazy Awesome takes the driver's seat and takes us right over the side of the cliff. Answers are questioned, questions are answered, and Shepard goes from merely angry to really, really pissed.
> 
> The fourth arc is about the 'secondary mission' – more details later. No spoilers. :D
> 
> The fifth arc is the closing arc, the take-down of the Collector Base, and a showdown with the Council.
> 
> The appropiate music for this book is on Youtube, search for "Epic Legendary Intense Massive Heroic Vengeful Dramatic Music Mix" VOL I through III. And the rest, I guess.
> 
> This one is dedicated to Griffin, Charlene, Michael, Lais, Ahmet, Alyssa, Quintin, Sherry, James, Rob J, and of course Yonis. You all know who you are.
> 
> PS: For all the PM's about the trumpets, you're thinking along the wrong lines. I give you one important hint: Vorlons. LAWL.

THE FIRST ARC : DO NOT CALL UP THAT WHICH YOU CANNOT PUT DOWN

'You may want to rethink your clever plan. You had her killed once already and all you did was piss her off.'

-Garrus Vakarian to Harbinger

The office, like much of the base was cold, sterile.

White walls, trimmed in black, gleamed under the hard banks of overhead lights, the tile floors spotless. Every surface had the pristine appearance of a facility built to exacting specifications, no expenses spared. The room was luxuriously appointed, the best technology and the most comfortable extras, but it remained a place of cold, deadly science.

The air smelled of antiseptics, ozone, and the barest hint of corruption.

Miranda hated that smell. No matter how they adjusted the filters, the barest touch of rotting flesh somehow lingered, as if a reminder from God at the abomination they were performing.

She cleared her thoughts, sitting in her offices aboard Aristeas Station. She disapproved of the fixation the Illusive Man had with ancient Greek mythological naming, but the name was ironically appropriate in certain ways.

As usual, her mornings were all the same. Wake up and perform her usual aerobic workout, mental exercises and memory games. Review all the work orders for the nanite groupings Vigil oversaw in the nightly builds. Examine chemical and biochemical compound reads from the clones and implement any framework changes into the subject. Spend a good twenty minutes reviewing their progress thus far and marvel at how far they had come. After just over two years of hard work, Miranda was starting to believe they could do the impossible.

This wasn't just cheating Death. It was mugging him and making off with the goods in broad daylight.

The challenge at the beginning had been one of scale. They had to revive the dead, and the subject in question was the single deadest person Miranda could imagine.

Sara Ying Shepard had died in a manner almost too gruesome to contemplate. Literally burned alive while being smashed by the wreckage of her own ship, choking on her own blood and with her oxygen cut. The crime syndicate that extracted her body from the wreck of the Normandy had no reason to be very careful, rendering all her extremities useless. Being frozen solid was just a final indignity.

The Illusive Man's original plan was to resurrect Shepard just as she was, a normal human woman with perhaps a touch of corrective cyberware or bionetic implants. That had been tossed out three weeks into the project.

Almost eight percent of Shepard's brain mass was gone. Her heart and lungs were crushed. Less than twenty seven percent of her skeleton was intact, and her body was so ruined as to be beyond the help of any regeneration device. Every single organ was damaged, her remaining leg was mostly a frostbitten stump, and her remaining arm had been mangled so badly that the left hand could touch the left elbow.

The use of advanced cybernetics could correct some issues, at least on a purely physical level, but just cramming her full of replacements would only give them a zombie thing with a rotting brain. Much more would be required.

It took over seven months and well over three hundred million credits to even be confident that they could restore her physical form in any way. Entire companies were bought out and new technologies researched. Scanners with picoscale capabilities. Nanites that could read and reconstruct DNA on the fly.

Biotic cyberware – known as blueware – would be required as well, for Shepard had been a biotic prior to death and that ability made up a large part of her arsenal. Each piece had to be custom designed, fitted carefully into a plan of action that was mostly theoretical and dependent on breakthroughs in human medicine that didn't even exist.

When they'd started, she thought the project was impossible.

That was when Jack Harper changed the goalposts.

Now they just had to bring her back. It had to be her – her mind, her personality - but he was willing to accept that she might have memory loss, or be so cybernetic that she wouldn't even technically classify as human. The Systems Alliance considered anyone over forty-five percent cybernetic to be impaired, and legal limits restricted any conversion past 55%.

Every scenario they saw would require at least 75% to 80% conversion. Maybe more. And so the planning had begun, and the arguments.

The psychology of Shepard had to be carefully researched first. The chief psychologist had pointed out Shepard suffered from many issues before her death, and simply stuffing her organs and brain into some kind of freak-show cybernetic body, ala Richard Williams, would end up in failure. Shepard already saw herself as a monster and killing machine at one point, and dehumanizing her – especially given the loss of her wife – would only create additional mental issues.

Nor was that the only challenge. Even with cybernetics, they wouldn't solve all the issues. While Project Osiris had created artificial organs, the efficiency of such devices was still hotly debated. Some of the research showed that high percentage cybernetic conversions suffered more mental decay and what was known as cell-memory drift the more they were 'disconnected' from biological systems.

Miranda felt this was a load of spiritualist hooey, but the data didn't lie. You could literally plot the amount of cancer, the lifespan and mental stability of the Alliance's veterans with cyberware along a line corresponding to their cyberware percentage.

Shepard's exposure to the Prothean Beacon had also damaged her mind on some level – they didn't know how well she could hold up without the constant prop of her bondmate, Liara, who was now very dead. Trellani said she could try some things, but serious thought was given to making some kind of clone of T'Soni, or even engaging some other asari to bond. Trellani shot that idea down and spent weeks poring over stolen texts and interrogating asari priestess brutally captured by Kai and Pel, before personally and sadistically executing each one.

She claimed she could fix the issue, and Harper said it was handled.

Unfortunately, that was only the mental problems. On a physical level, merely re-cloning and replacing tissues wouldn't work either. The damage to the brain would require several cybernetic systems to correct and monitor, and Shepard had done something before death that had left many of her cells highly irradiated – Joker thought it was probably the explosion of the Kyle class torpedo she'd damaged the attacking ship with that might have caused that. A full clone replacement attempt usually resulted in multiple cancers. Every clone had to be DNA-examined, genome proofed – which reduced their yield and meant they went through a truly sickening amount of clones during the project.

Worse, no clone could be created with the nervous modifications and alterations to the lymphatic system caused by eezo exposure. Even if they could expose a prenatal Shepard clone to eezo, they couldn't wait for it to grow to full size, nor could such things be merely swapped over. If they could have done that, humanity could create biotics at will. Luckily, most of Shepard's original eezo nodes remained, and while they couldn't clone new ones, they could induce additional nodes in the body while she was functionally dead at little to no risk, boosting her power – but only by utilizing her real, natural body tissues where possible.

Finally, there was always the ugly fact that fully cloned tissue seemed to decay and age faster than 'natural' tissue. They still didn't know why, and Vigil was unhelpful, as Inusannon bio-science had never seen this issue, but even with its help they were unable to overcome the issue completely. Vast banks of clones were flash grown and harvested for healthy cells, which were used to create more clones, but none of them would be fully viable.

They could cheat – a little – by culturing existing, surviving cells without heavy damage. But that would be painstaking work, with any imperfections resulting in starting over from scratch. Vigil was confident they could come up with a clone Shepard that would last, but Harper rejected the idea.

He didn't want a copy. He wanted the real thing, no matter what it cost or how much effort it took. He would compromise on many things, but not on that. And so they began.

Shepard's original body – or at least her torso and head – would have to be salvaged, strengthened, and augmented. The design specifications were simple, but daunting. Shepard would need strong protection on all internal organs, as they would be far more fragile with the type of repair and patch job she was undergoing. Sub-dermal armor, arterial mesh, nanorepair systems, onboard medigel systems – anything and everything that could mitigate damage would be used. The skeleton would need heavy augmentation and bracing, not only to support the cyberware and myomer musculature, but to shield the carefully vat-grown replacement marrow and small nanofactories that would enhance her blood.

Shepard's eyes were gone, and no one had ever mastered making new purely biological ones that were more than cosmetic fillers, so she'd end up with cybernetic replacements there. Her hearing was still functional, once the nanites repaired her delicate inner ear bones, and nothing would be wrong (or changed) about her smell or taste. But additional vision mods and hearing augmentation was built into the empty cyberskull they planned to put her brain inside once it was done being fixed.

They'd spent a month getting the exact coloration of the eyes down, and six days on the subtle folds around the eyes that hinted at Shepard's Chinese heritage. Miranda shuddered when she remembered the four hours they spent on the damned teeth. Or the endless fucking tedium of checking and rechecking the damned hair. None of it was hooked to the body, but it all had to perfect before that point, anyway.

Every detail had to be perfect, not just for psychology's sake, but so that there could be no accusations of Cerberus genning up some kind of monstrous fake. Every bit of the flesh from Shepard that could be salvaged was, carefully bathed in nutrient growths, and overlain where feasible.

More planning was done on what extra features to include in the body that would be used. Some things – gyroscopes in the wrists, protective features against small arms, choking, poisons – were obvious. A low powered pulse stabilizer was Trellani's suggestion, that would stop pulse suppressors and grenades, although not phase disruptors and disruptor rounds, from blocking her biotics.

Clones were made, exposed to horrific death scenarios, and the damage to the brain modeled and examined carefully. The corpse itself was injected with stabilization nanotechnology, as well as something the Inusannon AI known as Vigil created called a 'serenity matrix', some kind of energy field that prevented cellular decay for short periods of time.

The planning began to take on more and more complex aspects, as new people were brought in under heavy scrutiny and some of the first new tools came online. More cultures of cells were taken and examined. The body was laid out and carefully debrided of damaged flesh too wrecked for salvage, while any remaining harvestible cells were cultured. Shattered bone fragments had to be extracted, one by one, in painstakingly delicate operations too fine for the human hand or even most VI's – Vigil itself performed these.

Injections of nanite-laden serum and medical omnigel, packed with building materials, vitamins, amino acids and other less salubrious materials were carefully placed at certain points. The head was left in stasis panels while the body was literally cored, carefully prepared, and set aside. Each organ was given its own critical examination, and the liver, stomach, and kidneys were written off as losses and replaced with cloned replacements, augmented by cybernetics such as filtration systems, chemical analyzers, and a small device that could automatically discharge both clotting and anti-clotting agents.

The badly damaged heart was augmented with cloned tissues and corrective cybernetics, wire mesh and plastic sheathing wrapping around it. Microscopic robots stiffened dead muscular tissue, and nutrient baths and regeneration machines worked on it. The lungs were flash-cloned a dozen times and various models tested and examined, augmented with even more complex and intricate built-in filtration systems.

Miranda had to stop for three months and learn, alongside her slowly growing staff, the delicate details of cybernetics from a sneering Vigil. But the Inusannon biotechnology was literally millenia beyond the best technology the Alliance had, and she put up with the thing's insults. The cybernetic devices they created were 'living metal', capable of regeneration and rebuilding on their own.

Months passed. Entire teams were formed – doctors, biotechnological specialists, cybernetics experts. Two Nobel-Manswell prizewinning biologists joined. The limbs were given to one team, the primary organs to another, and so on and so forth. The progress reports she sent to the Illusive Man became less defensive, more assertive.

The shape on the table began to look less like a mess of meat and tubes, and more like a robot spliced with a human. An entirely new operating theater, highly automated and designed with Vigil's specially programmed VI's in charge, was built at staggering cost. The integration of flesh and metal began, with every cybernetic system overlain with living flesh or a bionetic equivalent. No expense was spared in making the results feel as natural as possible, down to the point where Miranda and one of the cloning techs had a screaming argument over how bouncy her ass should feel to the touch.

Somehow, a recording of this got to Pel, who made endless jokes about it. Miranda offered Kai Leng anything he wanted to stab the other Cerberus agent, and two days later Kai sent back a picture of Pel having suffered a fall down several sets of stairs with his new cyberarm busted and spurting out hydraulics in all directions.

The image had made her smile, if only for a day. She still had it as as screen saver on her portable terminal. The next day she was back to the grindstone, struggling with learning the field of hematology and why Shepard's blood had to have certain elements.

Entirely new fields of medicine were discovered as the new year rang in. Blood chemistry blended with biotechnic developments as they came up with a synthetic blood that would augment natural blood.

Clones were created, harvested, disposed of. One of the key researcher shot themselves, the ethical and legal implications of what they were doing too much for them to handle. Another one went crazy and Taylor and Ezno put him down, throwing the body out the station airlock when they were done.

Miranda realized she wasn't eating enough, but her days blurred together as they worked. Weeks swept by, as progress crawled. Two of the doctors on the ocular implant team ended up having a torrid affair and the woman getting pregnant. Arguments about bringing families to the station were shot down by Ezno with his trademark cold glare.

By the late third of the year, they had ... something. A monstrous body, slowly being reshaped back into a human form. Every possible flaw was examined. Meetings dragged on for hours about how to handle possible attacks. Side effects. Unexpected setbacks and plans were constantly adjusted. Some of what they were working on now was so far beyond known medical science that the teams coined their own words for elements of the work. The alien mix of nanotech living metal and bionetic artificial flesh was mockingly named 'Sheep's Clothing', for example.

Miranda pleaded with Harper to do more careful screening of people with a habit of making horrible puns.

As progress advanced, Wilson's work on the gray-box continued. Vigil had some method of mapping out the neural pathways of Shepard's brain, and combined with Wilson's own research, the possibility that they could accurately save almost all of Shepard's memory – and personality – was rising to close to one hundred percent. Still, it was painstaking, tedious work – thousands of connections were needed, and these were carefully stored on the gray-box, even while swarms of nanites laid billions of chemical trails between neurons, trying to balance the electrochemical balance of the brain once more to that of a living being.

Vigil had said the Inusannon could be revived from death in this manner, although he admitted Inusannon physiology was far stranger than human physiology. Wilson worked diligently, even if in Miranda's opinion he bitched far too much and was too cautious in his approaches.

Two months ago, the breakthrough had happened. Wilson had found a chemical sequence that seemed to produce neural reactivation in the brains of clones killed and left for dead for several hours. It was a mixture of drell mental proteins, mapped to the human genome with coding to mimic the drell genetic pattern as closely as could be achieved with human DNA.

The mixture was tested for weeks on a dozen clones before Miranda went to the Illusive Man for authorization to use it. They'd all held their breath as the gray-box was installed, the microscopic leads threaded through the brain, and the serum injected.

They'd nearly panicked when they realized they were seeing faint neural activity, but Miranda had kept her cool, focusing the team on the integration. A grueling and marathon surgery of twenty five hours had reunited Shepard's brain with her now overhauled body. Nerves were reconnected. Blood vessels clamped shut by nanonic doors were reopened.

It wasn't life. But it wasn't death any longer either. Now they merely had to finish what they started. The celebration had gone on for several hours that day, she remembered.

She glanced up at the status repeaters for the medical bay. No changes. A flicker of a smile crossed her face as she remembered the glow of fierce pride she'd felt. The drinking, the night with Taylor, the rare and proud smile of Jack Harper – it had been a good night.

Now, a month later, they faced new problems. The body had to synchronized with the brain, and the eezo nodules carefully interlaced with both the nervous system and the blueware. A single mistake in one of the nine operations would ruin Shepard's biotics forever.

Assuming that the body on the slab ever woke up. Miranda finished her green tea and walked over to the heavy window in the wall, looking out over the medical bay.

Nude, Shepard seemed to merely be sleeping. The life support docket still extracted waste and kept her breathing, her blood pumping and her other needs taken care of. Robots monitored every system constantly, with human oversight at every level – no failures could or would be tolerated.

Only the most extreme care had been taken to attempt to restore her wrecked body to what it was. Some scars were missing, which Miranda did not think Shepard would miss. The body itself was ...entrancing. The cocoa toned skin rippled with finely tuned muscles, concealing the carefully placed sub-dermal plating covering many of Shepard's vitals. Those muscles were mostly artificial myomer – much stronger than human, and they'd never tire or produce waste products. Still, even laying there, she radiated a sense of power, of dark sensuality.

Miranda didn't envy Shepard's looks...exactly. But no one looking on Sara Shepard would think she was any kind of cyborg, that was certain. Too much attention had been spent on the tiniest details.

The breasts had to be rebuilt, and Miranda had found to her chagrin that Alliance records didn't include bra sizes. Miranda had erred slightly on the side of caution – she didn't think Shepard would complain. Reconstructing the other sexual organs was trickier. Vigil had argued there was hardly a need to compromise the hip region with such things, but Miranda had violently and vehemently disagreed.

Bad enough Shepard was sterile. Flash clones were incapable of producing viable ova in any case, and it didn't seem fair to somehow unsex her without her consent. Oddly enough, it had been Matriarch Trellani's agreement that won that particular argument.

Trellani's job, when it came time to wake Shepard, would be to try to stabilize her mind. Harper had been furious when he learned Liara T'Soni was dead, and Trellani had repeatedly warned that they were taking a serious chance that Shepard might become suicidal or depressed upon learning this. When Miranda suggested simply hiding the truth, the Illusive Man had shook his head.

"The one thing we cannot afford with Shepard is to lie to her. She won't accept that, or having things hidden from her. To make this work, we will have to play by her rules – her ability to accept and deal with things."

It had lessened none of the load on Miranda's shoulders, knowing that even if they brought Shepard back, they could still fail the moment she awoke.

More testing, more lab work, endless examinations. More cybernetic installation, more blood work, more samples. Every day was a new set of data to examine, to review, to see if they were missing something critical. Vigil had gone over the body of Shepard several times, scanning closely, but never found anything out of place.

Now all that was left was the final stretch, and seeing if their dark miracle would actually get up off the table and live...or if their work was in vain after all.

With a sigh, she turned from the window. It was time for the meeting.

Exiting her office, she walked through the wide corridors of the base towards the primary meeting room, nicknamed the Shit Pit by the less than eloquent members of the research team. The name came from the dark brown carpeting in the room, the sloped walls, and the constant amount of arguing and disagreement that occurred in the meetings it hosted.

The station itself was paranoia made manifest. It was built inside a massive asteroid, tucked into a ragged chain of other asteroids in the 'hot zone' of a neutron star. Electromagnetic radiation and torrential storms of hard x-rays would have normally made it uninhabitable, but the entire asteroid was hollow, the crust fortified by sixty feet of lead and filled with a quarter mile of graphite-fortified water. It also huddled behind a more massive asteroid that had been impregnated with iron over the course of months by nanites sprayed into the dark face of the stony body.

The station itself was relatively small. Three floors of medical labs, cloning facilities and testing labs. A floor for the medical operations, and one floor for offices and meeting rooms. Three floors of living spaces, entertainment facilities, exercise rooms and the like. A hangar bay that was actually a huge box on rails that moved from the base itself to an external mounting point, each end of the bay a giant airlock.

The outer shell of the base was a defensive deathtrap, manned with the bizarre, carved statues Vigil created and somehow animated, along with various mechs of the Illusive Man's own design, a maze-like layout studded with traps and false leads, and five floors of a completely fake base dedicated mostly to producing various equipment unrelated to the real project. Harper was sure the Broker could infiltrate his forces given enough time, and had taken every reasonable and unreasonable precaution.

Only those scientists willing to have a cortex bomb installed in their head and undergo a shallow link and screening by Matriarch Trellani could work on the project. The rewards Harper dangled in front of them were blindingly attractive: ownership of patents and designs, shares in the new GenSynth corporation that had been fronted to prototype much of the more esoteric technology, cash rewards, and more.

Of the nine specialist doctors leading the project, only two - Wilson and Chambers - knew their patron was Cerberus – the rest thought this was a highly classified Alliance black project. There were no Cerberus logos on anything, no black and orange armor suits. Even the security force Taylor and Ezno ran so carefully wore standard Alliance uniforms.

The people staffing the base were mostly not 'real' Cerberus, either. Explaining Vigil to some of them had taken more than a few days, but everyone got used to it, and seemed to be pleased the Alliance had 'gotten one over' on the Council. The cover story – that the Alliance had stolen Vigil, that Shepard was being brought back to life per the orders of the High Lords, that the technology would advance human science and power – was lapped up. Some of the scientists, after all, had been involved in other black projects.

The presence of Trellani was handled by the amusing act of the asari dressing up as a Commissar, and Miranda was always sourly impressed by how much like one of those nuts she could act.

She even carried one of those outre flamethrowers around.

Miranda was fairly sure one reason for the security was that most of these people would have to die once the project was completed. That didn't bother her as much as it might have, two years of the most ethically questionable science in human history eroded one's sense of outrage.

As she entered the Shit Pit, she suppressed a grimace at the decor once more. The room was circular, with seats for nine people. The table was brown wood-grain and plain armaplast, but the walls were colorful pale brown pastel colors designed to promote calm thinking. The thick brown pile carpet was comfortable, but utterly wasteful. The big haptic displays on the walls were currently displaying status reports, Shepard's life-signs, and a real-time view of her nude body still on its life support table.

She took her seat the table, slightly early as was her usual habit, and focused her thoughts. As she was doing so, the far door slide open, and the nominal head of security, Randal Ezno, walked through the door. His blue eyes swept across the room in a quick search for threats, just like they always did, before he closed the door behind him and sat in his chair.

She didn't like Ezno, but she didn't dislike him either. He was just ... very stolid. Cold features, cold voice, cold actions. He was a good leader, disciplined and certainly more professional than Pel or Kai Leng. He was nearly as much of a stickler for procedure and accuracy as she was, and drilled his people hard. If not for the fact she had more than a bit of an attraction to Jacob, she would have considered him an ideal chief of security.

But since she did prefer Jacob to this unfeeling wall of a man, she often found herself comparing the two. Jacob led through his own determination and will, inspiring his men to do better. Ezno's icy demeanor and inhuman level of perfection in every aspect of combat was almost demoralizing. He dismissed failure as a sign of incompetence, and expected everyone to adhere to his own standards.

His lack of empathy was useful when it came time for security to tighten, however. He was the only one in the room with no true medical knowledge, but his insight into combat augmentations – and his own experience, with cybernetics, biotics, and weapons – often let him make not only useful but practical contributions to the discussion.

She met his blank gaze with a polite nod, waiting for others to enter.

It only took a few minutes for most of the team leaders to enter and get settled. She reviewed them mentally as she prepared for the meeting.

Wilson himself was at the far end of the table. Short and acerbic, given to outbursts of frustration and a tendency to 'throw shit at the wall until it stuck', he was still brilliant with neurology and neuralink programming, if hopeless at more basic medicine. His development of the mapping techniques for force-filling a gray-box – and having those memories capable of merging back into a human mind without the usual sythesia – was key to the project. Wilson was sloppy and slovenly, but only with his personal appearance – his notes and research materials were immaculate, his testing eccentric but strict, and while he was inclined to do things by the seat of his pants more than Miranda liked, he also produced results. As usual, he was more occupied by his cup of coffee than his surroundings, eyes mostly glued to his padd as he reviewed baseball scores.

Next to him, Doctor Chandar Gayan was reviewing his own notes. A dark-skinned man of Indian extraction, he was the team lead for hematology and oncology. The amount of modified genetics, cyberware, and other foreign materials they were cramming into Shepard's corpse would cause severe toxicity and feedback issues, and Gayan was the one trying to avoid or mitigate those. His dapper appearance was set off by the coldness of his eyes and his deep, booming voice, which always sounded as if he was selling something. Unlike everyone else, his lab coat was worn atop an immaculate three piece suit of the most modern and stylish cut, his dark hair was always freshly trimmed, and his strong cologne was a constant identifier of his personal presence.

Doctor Natalia Kyursko sat next to him, in a conversation with Doctor Kelly Chambers. The bombshell blond Russian woman's flirtation with Chambers at any possible moment was more rumor mill grist for the base personnel – hardly surprising. Kyursko could favorably compare with Miranda herself in terms of the way she carried her supermodel looks, but unlike Miranda was outgoing, extremely friendly and had a roving eye and a reputation for playing both sides of the isle. She'd been playing sweet-glances with Chambers since she'd gotten here a year and two months back, her background in muscular systems and myomer integration valuable to the team, but so far Chambers had shot her down for the often rumored liaisons Kyursko was famous for.

Chambers herself was the one team member Miranda was truly ambivalent about. Kelly was Cerberus – she was the Illusive Man's personal psychological specialist, and far more dangerous than her innocent, bubbly personality would reveal. She looked as if she was twenty six but was far closer to forty, and her sparkling green eyes danced with mischief that Miranda instinctively distrusted. As the team psychological and mental therapy specialist, she would be busy alongside Trellani stabilizing Shepard when she woke up, but her input had been critical in how they chose to rebuild Shepard.

It had been Kelly who had gone to the trouble of recreating Shepard's Tenth Street Red tattoo, and who had demanded they save both the strange notebook of designs and drawings in the stasis pod and the multicolored hammered gold bracelet on her remaining arm. Miranda was amused when Trellani backed Chambers up, and she grudgingly admitted she mostly distrusted Kelly because she got along so well with that asari ... person. It didn't help that of all the team members and researchers, only Kelly's file was unavailable to Lawson.

She hated being in the dark, and the few times she'd gotten testy with Kelly, it was readily apparent the psychologist was more than capable of dismantling Miranda's own fragile mental state with a handful of words and a dismissive smile. Miranda would have gladly removed her if she wasn't so useful – and kept that dreadful Kyursko woman from hitting on her.

Ignoring the two of them, she swept her eyes past Ezno to the rail-thin figure of Doctor Carla Andira. A slender woman with dark black hair and intelligent eyes, Andira's ancestors had been Brazilian, a dark mark on her entire life so far. Struggling to find funding for her research into exotic applications of nanotechnology and immune systems, she'd been snapped up by Miranda and was the only one of the non-Cerberus team leads she was considering salvaging after the project completed. Andira was as driven as Miranda herself, something of an introvert, and completely without ego – willing to compromise when it was needed, but standing firm when she knew she was right. Always helpful and positive without being bubbly, the young doctor was probably Miranda's favorite, and surprisingly the only real friend she'd made in her days here.

The last two doctors were the more morally troubling of the group. Doctor David Ahankar was some mongrel mix of Scottish, Italian, Ethiopian and Samoan, giving him dark red hair, black eyes, the build of a sumo, and a surprisingly good tenor. From Arcturus, his patois was mostly gone and his accent mostly clean, but on occasion he would drop into the old tongue and unleash scathing profanity. Ahankar was the lead in charge of cloning and organ integration, a fully trained internist with six degrees and several patents under his belt. He was also an egomanical skirt chasing asshole in Miranda's opinion, and far too quick to answer any question with tests of clones that killed said clones in horrible ways. He didn't care if Shepard lived or died, he just wanted to prove his theories on clone harvesting to improve natural cellular efficiency was right.

But even he was pleasant compared to Doctor Jeremy Hyrim. A doctor from Bekenstein, his pale skin and dark hair and eyes weren't unusual, but his Jewish kippah hat and long, ultraorthadox beard certainly stood out. Ahankar was a womanizer, while Hyrim hated women and was a sexist pig when it came to anything and everything. His specialization in bone regeneration, skeletal support, and cybernetic mounting made him critical, but his inputs were rarely anything but sandpaper to the nerves. Worse still, he was the first one calling for more outrageous and inhuman modification to Shepard's body – any cost to her mind was dismissed. He was still miffed, she thought, that the whole project didn't center around a man.

She sighed, as one seat was still unfilled. As she did so, the door slid open, and the lean form of Doctor Saylish Six-Hawks walked in and sat down. His craggy face was twisted in a smile as he did so. Six-Hawks was an American Indian, a skilled bioengineer and a masterful neurologist and nerve surgeon, but his actual specialization was in biotic therapy and care. While certainly good at his job, he was almost chronically late to every single meeting, and had tendency to 'indulge' in various esoteric theories that always sidetracked each discussion and enraged Hyrim.

Miranda sighed. "It's time for the monthly status recap. Before we get started, I wish to thank your teams again for their hard work over the past week. We're now showing seventy eight percent integration on the nervous voluntary level and ninety-two percent involuntary – that means we can take the subject off life support as early as this week and set a final date for reawakening in the near future."

She forced a smile, and then continued. "However, as you all have seen the reports, we have increased failure signals as well. Neural tissue growth is barely moving at two-tenths of a percent. Scarring has once again set in across the shoulder joints and the cloned kidneys are still not filtering correctly. Shepard doesn't need to wake up with gallstones the size of a golf-ball, I think we can all agree on that."

She checked her notes. "Also, toximal gas buildup is up half a percent. We need a better way of eliminating that from the body until we get the artificial blood up and running at full capacity. We also are worried about the most recent MRI scans – we're not seeing enough neural activity, well below the planned threshold."

She looked up. "Now, let's review our current status, system by system. Doctor Wilson?"

O-TWCD-O

Four draining hours later, she stood in the primary communications room, before the semitransparent QEC image of her leader.

He'd listened carefully to her report, smoking and sipping his drink as usual, and then nodded as she finished. "It sounds as if you are nearly complete with your preparations. The facility we'll be moving Shepard to for the awakening process is nearly finished, along with the support materials and personnel we'll need for her to complete the tasks I have in mind."

He put out his cigarette. "And with that being said...I have a proposition for you, Miranda. I know you've pushed yourself to the limits on this – first getting Shepard's body out of the mess at Omega, then tackling a project that challenged everything we assumed we knew about the human body and the nature of death itself, and you've risen to the challenge every time." He smiled – a rare, real smile, not his usual thinly mocking one – and she found herself helplessly smiling back.

"Thank you, sir. I have done the best I could, and while I'm not entirely satisfied with the way things ended up, I'm convinced we certainly achieved the goals you set for me."

He nodded. "You did. But as amazing as what you've accomplished is, you must realize it is only the very first, small step in a much larger plan."

He leaned back in the chair she could only barely make out. "Before I lay out my proposition, some framework understanding is needed. The Reapers are still out there. The war with the geth is grinding down, and the batarian Empire is mostly a fraction of its former might, but both are still dangerous and possibly under the control of Reaper forces. The Council, thanks to the honeyed words of the Broker, think they have decades until the Reapers strike."

He lit a fresh cigarette. "I disagree."

She frowned. She'd not been able to keep up on outside events or politics as much as she would have liked, and she knew she was out of the loop. "Is there anything specific that is worrying you?"

He nodded, slowly. "There have been, over the past year, six wildcat colonies of humans in the Traverse completely wiped out. By what, I don't know. Every one of them is simply vacated of human life, as if something came along and scooped them up in the middle of work, play, or sleep. There is no evidence of a culprit, no signs of battle, no sensor logs that give us even the slightest clue. Every one so far is reachable by FTL from multiple relays, so we haven't even got a good fix on where the enemy is striking from."

She turned that information over in her head. "It wouldn't be the geth, then, since they never bothered to hide their activity when attacking before, only their attempts at building anchorages outside the Veil."

He gave her another smile. "Exactly my thinking. I've narrowed down the possible culprits, and there are only three possibilities. Slavers or raiders, independent military of an alien species...or an unknown actor, something we've not considered."

He puffed on his cigarette."Slavers and raiders don't have the capacity for the sort of surgical precision and flawless execution I've seen. Every colony with GTS defenses was taken with said defenses firing a shot. Pets were unharmed. Twice, asari were on the wildcat colonies, and were found simply dead, of a completely unknown toxin that was administered via some kind of injection – possibly a sting or bite."

He sipped something from the glass on the arm of his chair, then set it back down. "I've ruled out alien military action for the simple expedient that not a single solitary drive trace or any identifiable weapons fire residue has ever been picked up. The only thing my ships found six hours after a raid was a hint of exotic particle traces."

Miranda frowned. Why did that sound familiar? She reviewed her memories and then looked up. "The Normandy picked up exotic particle traces right before that unknown ship attacked and destroyed it."

Harper nodded. "Exactly. Based on what we've been able to put together from the scattered recollections of Mr. Moreau and the hull scarring on the wreckage of the Normandy, whatever destroyed her was using some kind of weapon much like the main gun of Nazara, although with a different focus. More like some form of supercharged particle stream."

He tapped a control on the other arm of his chair. "My scientists on another project tell me that it is very unlikely anyone could have reverse engineered such a weapon at the time of the Normandy's destruction...and that the 'Thanix Cannon' the turians have come up with is no where near as powerful and efficient yet. No one else had access of any kind to such weapons. To me, it implies a connection to the Reapers."

She nodded slowly, then shook her head. "That may fit, but it's weak, sir. No one will buy that argument, even if it fits the data."

Harper smiled wryly. "A sadly accurate assessment, Miranda. The new Addison Administration and President Huerta don't want to rock any boats. Why should they? They hate the very idea of wildcat colonies, and every one that vanishes without a trace only makes the rest more nervous without SA protection." His eyes narrowed, the blue circles within each iris seemingly glowing brighter for a moment. "And it reminds me entirely too much of the plans Richard and Rachel came up with to build a base of support for Cerberus operations."

She sourly nodded at that idea. It had become clear, in the years since the fall of Cerberus, that somehow Richard Williams had survived the fall of the headquarters. The so-called group known as Hades was definitely bearing all the hallmarks of his meglomaniacal actions. Cerberus was still weak, still wary of openly exposing themselves, while Hades was seemingly everywhere, especially on the outer colonies, fed up after what they saw as SA intolerance and constantly rising taxes.

Miranda shrugged. "If your surmise is right, then the Alliance still should be concerned. If this is some Reaper scout force..."

He shook his head. "Nothing so dramatic, I think. It took a great deal of digging, and more fruitless bribes and maneuvering than I liked, but I've pulled together several pieces of the puzzle." He tapped his chair controls again, displaying a different image in the QEC. "Shepard found a second Tho'ian on the ruined garden world of Eingana, wounded and nearly destroyed. On that world she found a single survivor, a Exital scientist who recorded an assault by what we've confirmed were Collectors." He touched another control and a video began to play.

A shaky image of some forest-strewn skyscraper appeared, the plantlife obscuring most of the ruin a sickly blue color. In the distance off to the left of the tower, a cylindrical ship, half comprised of arches of gray or black metal, half comprised of what looked like rock, hung in the sky. A few turian fighters or gunships flew past, but a beam of golden light seared through each one, blasting them to little more than fragments.

Hulking black creatures with tear-drop shaped heads, four glowing eyes, and insectile wings descended, firing weapons that were more of the same beams of golden energy. Turians they hit were disintegrated, collapsing to piles of smoking char and ash. Swarms of what looked like fist sized bugs choked the air, obscuring the battle.

A large group of the winged, insect-looking aliens was heading on foot into the city, cutting down anything in their path. The video ended suddenly, in a burst of static, then faded to black.

Miranda shrugged. "I fail to see the relevance."

Harper blew out smoke as he leaned back. "The ruins have, of course, been seized and sealed by the turian Hierarchy. But they ran tests on the damage to the building, and to the wrecked turian fighters. The weapon that inflicted that damage is almost an exact match to the weapon that destroyed the Normandy."

He looked at his glass, and frowned, handing it off to someone out of the pickup's cone of vision. "We also know, based on some of the information seized at Saren's base on Noveria and from bits found at Virmire, that Okeer was defiantly working with Saren. The Broker claimed to have killed him, but our ears in the Traverse have more than few rumors of missing krogan clans or mercenary groups, and we have video of what looks like a Collector vessel – nearly identical to the one in the video – operating in the vicinity of Korlus, a backwater salvage world. A world that suddenly has a large number of new krogan recruits, all supremely well trained and savage. It is possible he survived and struck some kind of deal with the Broker."

Harper dumped ashes from his cigarette, as a new drink was placed by his side. "Okeer was a famous genetic scientist and aided the salarians in the creation of the Genophage. He was also, according to Rana Thanoptis, who was captured at Virmire, responsible for the rachni-krogan crossbreeds seen on the Citadel during the Benezia Incident."

Miranda felt lost. "I'm still not following."

Harper inclined his head. "Patience. The final piece is the one that I've been awaiting confirmation on. Doctor Thanoptis and records found at Ylana's base both tell us that Collectors did business of some kind with Saren and with Ylana."

He spread his hands. "We have a very tenuous connection that implies the Collectors might be involved with Reapers and were definitely involved with both Saren and Ylana, as well as responsible for exterminating a Tho'ian. We know, based on Okeer's message to Ylana found on Lehan, that Okeer dealt with Ylana. We know, based on what little we found out, that the Broker claims to have killed Okeer, but someone is on Korlus, dealing with Collectors, possibly selling krogan and breeding new ones. The thread is thin...but I think the Broker and Okeer may be tied to the Collectors."

His eyes narrowed. "I assumed that the Broker had been involved in the sabotage of Shepard's mission and her death because someone in the Alliance ordered it, but I found absolutely no evidence of that."

Miranda folded her arms. "Saracino killed himself. I thought we assumed that was the source?"

Harper shook his head. "His bank accounts were untouched, and in any event I'm not totally convinced it was a suicide. Someone on his staff bypassed his security system overrides and left his house unsecured for over six hours the night of his supposed suicide, then reactivated it in the morning and vanished from the face of the Earth. The AIS wanted to nail Saracino and didn't follow up on this, but I think he was killed because he knew something. What he knew, remains a mystery...but he was the child of Michael Saracino and Rachel Florez."

She placed her arms behind her back and waited. "And now?"

The Illusive Man finished his cigarette. "Right now, we're in a holding pattern, until Shepard wakes up and we can see what sort of mindset and state she's in. But the Collectors are the only party who fit the evidence we have for who is attacking human colonies. Three quarters of a million people do not just vanish without a trace, and I want to know why these colonies are being hit. Biological research to come up with a weapon to use against us? Terror tactics? Something else? It's a bad time to be blind."

She bit her lip. "Understood, but ... you said you had a proposition for me?"

He gave her a flat stare. "Yes. When Shepard wakes up, the best chance we have to convince her to work with us is to give her a focus for her anger and rage. A duty to perform, once that has no morally questionable overtones. One that allows her to ... find her bearings."

He paused, examining a data-padd in is hands."Based on Doctor Chambers recommendations, I'm already putting together a crew and we've been working for some time on an appropriate vessel. What I need, however, is someone who knows Shepard's medical condition and special needs, as well as someone who can be a competent executive officer and take command of the mission if Shepard goes...off-script. I need eyes, and a presence I can trust. I need you, Miranda, to continue working with her."

Miranda nodded, although she had reservations. Before she could speak, though the Illusive Man held up a hand. "I know you must be close to exhaustion, given how you push yourself. There will be a least a little down time on this. You're of no use to me on this mission if you're so worn down as to inefficient, and once she awakes Shepard will require ... testing."

He sipped his drink. "You won't be alone either. I can't part with Trellani, but I can give you good backup – Jacob Taylor for security, and Doctor Kelly Chambers for insight into Shepard's mind." He paused. "If she makes the call, she's also authorized to try to seduce Shepard, if that helps."

Miranda coughed. "Shepard's ... ah, memory streams as recorded on the gray-box indicated she had rather extreme tastes, sexually speaking. I know those are incomplete when viewed externally but - "

He shrugged. "Dr. Chambers is well aware of that. It is only an option...one I didn't want you trying, in case that worried you such would be required."

She smiled, but weakly. She'd been tasked more than once to use her body and looks to ensnare targets for Cerberus, something she hated. The tutelage of how to do so under an alien witch like Trellani was even more humiliating, even she even made men like Kai and Pel stare at her, and Jack himself crawl to her bed.

She had caught even Richard Williams, a thing that wasn't even alive anymore, staring at her ass more than once at headquarters. Disgusting. Clearing her thoughts, she nodded. "Thank you. I'm afraid my tastes do not really run towards my own gender."

Not that she hadn't thought about it. She figured a great many women in her position probably did. But it didn't seem to have any point to it. Sexual pleasure empty of any meaning behind it was certainly a stress relief, but never appealed to her. The few men she craved the attention of were all attractive...but they all caught her eye for a different reason, mental rather than physical.

She didn't know what the hell she was going to about Jacob, and having him along would certainly complicate things. But she could figure that out later.

She exhaled. "What else do I need to prepare for to take on this task, sir?"

He sat back, expression blank, eyes glancing to one side, and she recognized his pose as one of carefully considering his words. After long moments he finally spoke. "You need to be familiar with how Shepard thinks, and reacts. I'm certainly not above using her ... but if she feels used, or worse, manipulated, Chambers thinks she will react poorly. When she asks for data, give it to her. She's not a natural charismatic leader – yet she can lead. People want to impress her, to make her react. Put her into situations where she could be double-crossed by us and show her that we won't."

He folded one hand into a fist. "Don't, whatever you do, let her anger outrun her control. Don't make us a target. If she focuses on what Cerberus has done wrong, don't try to defend the organization or me, Miranda. She's going to be fragile at first. Be her friend."

The dark haired beauty gave Jack Harper a nigh incredulous look. "That's easier said than done! She is likely to look at us as a pack of terrorists!"

The Illusive Man smiled. "No, she would have. Once she sees the position she's in, she'll start blaming people. Her mind isn't one to analyze a situation, but to react to it. She rarely chooses the wrong answer. It's almost like she has a pragmatic engine for a mind, discarding anything but what has to be done. She'll realize that the Alliance and the Council both are ultimately not going to get involved. And the people of the wildcat colonies are weak, helpless. Innocent of the misdoings of the Alliance."

He smiled. "We might imply, although we have no proof, that the Collectors are gathering some kind of slave labor force."

She thought about that, and compressed her lips. "I'll have full information on Shepard?"

He nodded. "Not just the full dossier on her. Chambers is already working hard to prepare one for her interactions with the crew, past interactions with other people in her life, and position dossiers. I'm in the process myself of figuring out what kind of tasking to give her, and what sort of support she'll need, but I'm not just going to send her out on a ship to gather a pack of killers and hurl her at the Collectors."

He sipped his drink. "That's ... an inefficient use of the six and half billion credits we've invested so far."

She nodded. "How long do I have?"

He shrugged. "I'd like to see Shepard up and running in three months, Miranda – but if you need more time, take the time. Accuracy is more important than speed. I'd like to move her out of that base of yours and into the facility to wake her up when feasible, but I'm willing to give you five more months if you need them."

Miranda considered. "We'll be able to do it in three, sir. Have you given any thought to the idea we had of a control chip?"

Harper grimaced. "I have. And after careful thought, the answer is no. The stakes are too high. If it were discovered by other parties, and hacked, it could undo all our hard work – and no matter what security we put on such an interface, it would be a weak point. If discovered by Shepard or others, it would ruin any relationship with had with her, and turn her against us."

Miranda sighed."Then I hope your facility for waking her up has sufficient security, sir."

He nodded. "Oh, it does. It will serve as a base of operations for her, so I'm hardly going to leave it defenseless. For now, keep me updated on progress. Good work, Miranda."

O-TWCD-O

Somewhere between a dream and a memory, in a brain that only worked in some ways and not others, a tiny black-haired child dreamed of endless sunny skies. She felt alone, and frightened, until a blue hand reached down.

A somehow familiar face, with eyes full of love above freckled cheeks, smiled at her. "You will never be alone, Sara."

The little girl smiled, and sank again beneath the waves of awareness, drifting on a sea of shifting, rustling leaves. Tides of vast forests and a sky of spinning starships whirled overhead, with the light coming from a single vast crescent moon.

Wake up, Shepard.

Wake up.

Wake up, Sara.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People have recently asked about my pace of updates.
> 
> Today - April 12th - is the anniversary of my wife's death. The original OSABC was written to distract me from the pain of that, and around this time each year I tend to distract myself with writing once more. Perhaps it's just a habit now. I don't write this to generate sympathy, but to talk about something else. Make sure you hug your loved ones today. You will never know when they are going to be gone.
> 
> Trust me, the alternative sucks. She used to nag me about not writing more, since she told me I was good at it, I used to write her little fan fictions for her favorite shows to correct the fuckups she didn't like in them. I guess this is more of the same.
> 
> Anyway. Enough of me rambling. You came here for awesome, so here it is.
> 
> As with the last chapters of ATTWN, AN's will be shorter and rarely comment on the coming chapter. I would point out that I've made the full text of ATTWN available for download at my site logicalpremise dot org if you are interested.
> 
> Reviews are always welcome.

'I have to admit, having an angry Shepard staring down at you with a clenched fist is not exactly something you can face totally calmly.'

\- Jack Harper to Trellani

The first sensation Shepard could feel was cool air, blowing gently across her face. It seemed to caress her, carrying with it the scent of clean linen, and a bare hint of something sweeter, like perfume.

She blinked sleepily, mind fogged. She must have overslept. As usual, the part of her that would normally feel for Liara reached out.

A jagged sense of red pain for the barest split second was all she felt, that and nothingness. She sat bolt upright, eyes flying open, head moving back and forth as she looked around.

She was in some sort of hospital room, she could tell that right away.

The floors were pale wood decking, the walls light pastel blue and the ceiling had expensive, hexagonal lights, but she was in a medical bed – if one more comfortable and elaborate than usual – with a big stack of monitors, haptic panels and what not next to it.

She realized a moment later she was nearly naked, rather than wearing the usual hospital gown, she had on thin black boxers and a sports bra on. Her eyes snapped around the room, and she frowned. Her vision was … strange. Too clear. Her eyeballs felt gritty.

Her mouth was dry, but her lips were...they felt springy when she ran her tongue over them. A tooth she'd lost in her youth was somehow replaced. She flung the soft white covers off of her body.

She glanced over herself, calming only slightly. None of her goddamned limbs had been hacked off, at least. That was good. She reached for her biotics and felt a tingle, but nothing more. Her hands shot to the base of her neck and found the empty port where her bio-amp would slot in.

She frowned. There was supposed to be a ring of scar tissue around the port, from the clumsy hack job Doc Bonesy did back on Tenth Street, the scars the Alliance doctors never bothered to fix when redoing her port. She was still muddled, and scared – she couldn't feel Liara at all.

She glanced around, but the far door was still shut. The instruments by her bed, she saw now, were on, but not connected – no wireless data pads were stuck to her anywhere. She pushed her hair out of her face, frowning as it seemed longer than she remembered, and slid out of the bed, getting to her feet. There was a trashcan by the bed, empty.

She blinked and swayed as she stood. She felt...heavy. More balanced, yet .. weird. She moved her fingers, watching the interplay of muscles below her skin, and was more confused. Scars were missing, one on her left ring finger. The ugly ones on her thigh.

She was more confused because the pair of scars on her stomach – one a gift of Saren, the other an old war wound from Dirth – were still there. She turned her head, glancing over her shoulder – her ink form the Reds was still in place, faded and broken up by a narrow slash.

She padded over to the wall sink on the nearest wall, and the lights around the mirror came on. She stared at herself for long seconds, turning this way and that.

Most of the scars on her body were gone. Not the ones from battle...just the reminders of her torture in her childhood. The ugly puckered mark from Benezia's warp sword was there, but the barely-there ache it always gave her when she pressed down on it was missing.

Her body didn't feel right. She was always in good shape, but never in this good of shape. Every muscle on her body stood out in highlight, as if tensed. Her skin was creamy and flawless, not dry and flaky at the knees and oily in places. She turned sideways, eyes narrowing.

She was pretty sure her breasts were bigger. What the fuck?

She went to the door, trying the handle, finding it locked. The door itself wasn't the usual flimsy wooden barrier in most hospitals, this was a thick slab of metal with no little window, and the door frame around it was heavily reinforced. She frowned, then glanced back at the bed. It too was supported with more beams and struts than a normal bed.

The room had no windows, only the bed, the sink, the mirror, a slide-away door leading to a toilet, a pair of comfortable looking chairs, and a wall locker. She frowned, and headed to the locker, opening it with a single tug.

Inside hung a single set of clothing – plain white t-shirt, a pair of loose, silky black pants, a long sleeved cardigan of some kind, and a set of hair ties. Thin ankle high black socks and a pair of flats sat at the bottom of the locker.

On the small shelf above the clothing were four items. Her notebook, a haptic picture frame, turned off, what looked like an omni-tool bracelet, and her bonding bracelet.

Memory hit her. The Normandy. She'd been on the Normandy. She remembered fire, pain, tears – then nothing.

What the fuck had happened?

Given little choice, she did the obvious thing. She got dressed. The clothing fit her exactly right, and she noticed they were loose enough not to hug her body. Her notebook seemed fine, although one corner of the cover was stained with blood. She frowned at that.

She flicked the haptic picture frame on and it displayed an image of Liara, smiling gently. Shepard swallowed, worried, and cut it off, slipping into the single pocket on the cardigan sweater, then picked up the omni-tool and her bonding bracelet.

The omni-tool connected without a hitch as she placed it and her bonding bracelet on her arms, a cool female voice speaking.

"Sara Shepard, you have obviously awakened. There is a great deal of information you must be ready to absorb, but we want this to be as easy for you as possible. This is a recorded message, so please don't try to reply."

"When you are dressed and feel ready to leave this room – I would suggest making sure you use the restroom first – walk to the door. The omni-tool will unlock it. Follow the corridor to the door at the far end of the hallway – the other doors will only open into empty rooms, but if you must look, go ahead."

The omni-tool message cut out, and Shepard frowned. This almost felt like the way the Alliance was treating her after her near break at Torfan. She wondered if she'd lost her mind at some point. Was this a mental hospital? How did she get here? What happened to the Normandy, her crew? Liara?

She sighed. No point standing here like an idiot. She didn't need to use the restroom, so she walked out the door, tucking her notebook into the waistband of her pants in the small of her back.

There were two doors on either side of her own, all ajar, and then a short expanse of walls – bare steel – that curved inwards to meet the edge of a corridor stretching in front of her. The walls of the corridor were pierced by heavy armaglass portholes, and she walked forward, looking out of one.

Bright lights illuminated a seafloor, waving coral and strange sickle-shaped fish with no eyes moving through the green-tinted water. She was in some underwater base? Most mental hospitals weren't built underwater.

"Okay, what in the actual fuck is going on here?"

There was no answer, and she huffed and walked quickly through the hallway. She heard a rumbling sound, and a heavy metal door slid down behind her, sealing off the room she'd awoken in, bare blank metal.

Well, that was creepy.

"...great. I'm in some nutjob's secret fucking ocean base." She wished she had a weapon, or her bio-amp, but she remembered Ahern's stern advice – everything was a weapon, including her own body.

She reached the far door, which slid open, and stepped through it.

The room she was now in, as the door shut behind her and locked, was strange indeed. It was large, twenty by twenty, and the far wall was a thick but clear armaglass barrier pierced by a single archway currently blocked by a kinetic barrier. The floor was more hardwood decking – expensive shit – and a thick rug of plain black wool in hexagonical shape sat in the middle of the room, trimmed in burnt orange.

A comfortable leather chair flanked by a small black metallic table sat in the middle of the rug. A pack of expensive looking cigarettes, an ashtray, a lighter, a bottle of scotch, and a single crystal cut tumbler sat on the table. A low shelf below the table surface held a small , clear plastic bucket filled with ice.

The armaglass was currently smoked and dark, and the voice sounded from a speaker implanted in the wall, the same voice as before. "Please, have a seat. Have a smoke or a drink if that will settle your nerves, Ms. Shepard. I'll be down very shortly to speak with you."

She gritted her teeth. "Am I a prisoner?"

There was no response. She stewed in her own frustration for nearly a minute before giving an exasperated sigh and sitting in the chair. It was extremely comfortable, with leather padding and curved, sturdy feeling steel armrests.

Another twenty seconds passed, and she finally snatched the pack of cigarettes, examining it.

They were an expensive Bekenstein brand, one she'd smoked a few times in her time with the 2 RRU. Someone had studied her pretty well. She lit one, inhaling deeply, the fragrance of the cigarette crisply moving through her body.

A few seconds later, she heard a muted thump, and the armaglass began changing hues, before going suddenly transparent.

The room beyond was a mirror of her own, with a single heavy doorway leading out. Sitting in a chair to her left was an asari. She wore a long black gown with a repeating pattern of burnt orange hexagons diagonally down the bodice, a gray-black shawl with a hexagon pattern to it, and simple slippers on her feet. She was a darker blue than Liara, with complicated, almost sinister looking black facial markings, narrow cruel purple eyes, and thin, curved lips.

Where Liara was elegant and innocent, this asari looked sophisticated and sensual, but there was a hard edge to her gaze that made Shepard nervous.

To Shepard's right sat a human woman. She had clear green eyes and a wide smile, even if her jaw was a touch prominent. Messy red hair perched atop her head, and she wore a white lab coat over a black jumpsuit of some kind, with combat boots on her feet. She had a data-padd in her hands, and looked a bit nervous even with the smile.

Shepard glanced between them. "Okay, where the fuck am I and what the fuck is going on?"

The asari woman spoke first. "Ms. Shepard, my name is Trellani."

Shepard's eyes widened. She recognized that name, from her time with Liara. "You're some kind of asari terrorist? The fuck is going on?"

The asari gave her a smile that didn't comfort Shepard in the least. "That is ... one way to look at my past history, I suppose. Although that would be about as fair as calling you a genocidal murderer for your role in destroying the rachni. Those who do not know you should not judge you. I would ask the same courtesy."

Shepard didn't like her tone, but shrugged. "You aren't with the Asari Republic, or the Alliance."

The smile widened. "No."

Shepard sat back. "So I'm a prisoner."

The eyes danced with mirth. "No. Well, technically, at least until we've finished this conversation, you are. But once we're done and you've spoken with our superior, if you really want to leave, we'll be happy to let you go. We have no legal rights to detain you."

Shepard narrowed her eyes. The subtle stress on the word legal made her worried. "Alright. I interrupted you. Go on."

Trellani inclined her head and made a gesture of siari. "As I said, my name is Trellani. My associate is Doctor Kelly Chambers, a psychologist and councilor. We are here to attempt to answer the many questions you have and offer you an opportunity."

Shepard folded her arms. "Is that so? First question – where the fuck have you put my wife?"

Trellani's eyes flickered with something like pain and pity, and the human woman licked her lips and spoke, her voice quiet, but with a sympathetic tone. "Ms. Shepard, I have some bad news for you. Actually, I have quite a bit of bad news for you."

Shepard felt dread curl into her stomach. "No. No no no. She's not dead. She can't be dead. I was... I was on the Normandy. I got her away. I remember that."

She gripped the edge of the chair. "Did they kill her? Why? They were coming for ME!"

Chambers spread her hands slowly. "Ma'am, what you remember is correct. The people who attacked your ship left after destroying the Normandy, and Liara T'Soni escaped unharmed."

Shepard paused, confused and scared and upset. "Wait, what?"

Kelly took a deep breath. "Please, I ask you just to listen. Your ship was shot down. You were still on it, and you impacted with the planet Alchera, but your last minute attack on the alien attackers drove them away. You lost only nine crew members in the attack, all ops techs."

Kelly continued, the green eyes holding hers, not looking away. "Liara and the rest of your friends returned to Alliance space...but the Alliance did not recover your body from the wreckage."

Shepard felt as if she was dizzy. "My...body?" She paused. "Wait. I'm …dead? Am I me? What … am I some kind of clone?"

Trellani spoke, a single sharp word. "No." A pause. "You died. Your Alliance did not want to risk combat with Aria to recover your body. The Shadow Broker schemed with certain parties to recover your body and sell it to the Collectors."

Shepard's mouth trembled.

Trellani continued, her voice cool and hard. "Your corpse was shipped to Omega. But your bondmate, along with several of your friends and some assistance from the group we are with, assaulted the station. We recovered your body, and fled. In the fighting, your bondmate was killed. Along with Garrus Vakarian, Telanya Nasan, and Beatrice Shields."

Pain washed through Shepard's mind. "I..."

She buried her face in her hands. Liara was dead. She struggled to comprehend that statement, and her mind just refused to do so. After a long moment, she exhaled and looked up. "If I died, why am I talking to you?"

Kelly spoke again. "Our organization revived you."

Shepard's eyes snapped to meet hers. "I was fucking dead! You can't bring back the dead!"

Trellani nodded. "Yes, I know. I saw you upon arrival. You were extremely dead. But science marches ever onwards...and it seems even death hath no dominion over you."

Shepard was speechless. She'd died. She was alive. Liara was dead. Garrus … Tel. Shields. What in God's name was Bea doing there and why would she die for her?

Liara. Was dead. She couldn't even figure out how to process that thought. Shepard's brain fumbled for stability. For something to say. Emotions she couldn't describe swept through her and she found herself shaking, biting her lip, as her vision blurred.

She wiped her eyes angrily. "You brought me back. Bring Liara back."

Trellani looked at her sadly. "We cannot. We had your entire body, or at least most of it. The only thing we could salvage of your bondmate was...not enough to revive her. I know your pain, child. I have lost a bondmate, one cruelly murdered. My entire family died, while I was helpless to stop it. The soul is empty, no fire races through the blood, and every memory becomes a knife."

Shepard felt the impact of her words somewhere inside. She met the gaze, the sad knowledge those old eyes held, and felt fresh tears. "I...why in fuck would you bring me back to … when..."

Kelly Chambers bit her lip again and spoke gently. "Because the Broker is the one responsible for your death, and the destruction of the Normandy. And because, if our information and surmises are correct, he is working for the Reapers."

Something slowly descended on Shepard. It wasn't a thought, or an emotion. It wasn't a state of mind, it was like a switch flicking on. Or off. A single, solitary pulse of something so far beyond hatred as to have no clear name.

She heard her own voice speak, as if from a distance. "The Shadow Broker destroyed my ship, and killed me. And he was involved in Liara's death?"

Trellani gave a single slow nod, and Shepard trembled with rage. Burning, searing rage. She gripped the steel arms of the chair – and then blinked, shocked out of her anger, as they crumpled like cardboard under her grip, the thick metal warped and buckled.

She lifted her hand to look at it, and found it wasn't even bruised. She then looked up at the expression on Kelly Chambers face, and took a deep breath.

"I think you two need to explain a few things to me more clearly."

O-TWCD-O

"Let me get this straight." Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose. "You resurrected me using some kind of techno-magic bullshit that I understood six words of, but you don't know how long it will keep me alive. You've crammed me full of technology even a goddamned AI of the Inusannon can't be sure it understands, and I might fucking melt or blow up or have my fucking eyes fly right out my skull, if my biotics don't set me on fire. On the plus side, my tits are bigger."

She set her jaw. "The Broker might possibly be maybe working with Collectors, who might possibly maybe be the scouts or spies or fucking heralds or some other shit for the Reapers, who haven't made any moves in the past two years I've been dead. But you aren't sure, and all you have is a bunch of goddamned hunches."

"Most of my friends are dead, fucked in the head, or disgraced. The man I look at like my father is in a motherfucking mental hospital, General von Grath is in exile, the Alliance is being run by a zombie and Terra fucking Firma, and I've been resurrected by, of all the fucking people in the galaxy, a kinder gentler Cerberus."

Shepard narrowed her eyes. "On top of everything else, not only did you pack of fuckups get my wife and one of my best friends and HIS wife killed, but you also managed to piss off the Council so bad they trust the fucking Broker's word, when he's the bastard who set me up to get killed in the first place!"

She exhaled, jaw clenching. "And now you tell me some fucker is outright stealing humans from colonies, and no one is doing shit about it but you. Cerberus. The people who thought cutting up aliens was nifty. And you want me to work with you."

Chambers bit her lip and nodded. "A bit more colorful than my summary...but yes."

Shepard folded her arms. "Y'know, maybe I'm just a petty and ungrateful bitch, but what I'm not hearing is the part where I shouldn't go through this fucking base and execute every single goddamned one of you."

Trellani smiled. "There are three reasons for that. First, it would be utterly unproductive. We didn't kill you, Shepard. If anything, despite our unorthodox approach...we have given you an opportunity to avenge your own death, and that of your loved ones."

Shepard snarled. "They wouldn't be fucking DEAD if you hadn't dragged them into it!"

Trellani laughed quietly at her."Are you truly that naive? I have not bonded with you, but in the course of stabilizing your spirit and mind so that your severance from your wife's bond would not kill you, I saw deeply into you. The AIS would have killed Liara as soon as they could, on the off chance she knew anything that you did. The Commissars knew Aethyta had done a link with her daughter at least once and would have gone after her too. The main reason the Illusive Man made the offer is that those orders were already being prepared when we hustled them off Earth."

Shepard blinked. "You're lying. You have to be. I know the SA isn't all lights and goodness, but – "

Trellani smiled coldly. "You know full well the Asari Republic would not be at all displeased if Liara suffered an accident. There were elements on Earth who found the idea of an asari member of the Lords of Sol insulting. They tolerated it when it was her married to you, but her alone? Not something they were prepared to accept." The asari's words became clipped and hard. "Do you think your friend Jiong could have stopped them?"

She leaned back. "I will admit that Mr. Vakarian and the clanless girl might have survived. But we had no other assets to draw on, Shepard. We sent everyone we did have along for the ride and none of them returned unscathed, nor did Tali'Zorah."

Shepard's eyes snapped up. "I want to see her."

Kelly nodded., tapping her omni-tool. "And you will. But...please, listen to the Matriarch."

Trellani smiled again. "The second reason you shouldn't act against us, and instead work with us, is that no one is doing anything about the missing colonists. The Alliance does not care, as each loss frightens those colonies who attempt to remain independent, driving them back under the Alliance banner. The Council will not act because they believe the perpetrator is Aria, or perhaps slavers. There is little to no evidence they will listen to that proves otherwise. Only Cerberus – which, given they employ me, and Ms. Zorah, should tell you their stances and opinions on alien life are not what you think they are – is taking any action. Are you going to simply let this continue while these helpless people are enslaved, or butchered – or worse?"

Shepard grit her teeth. They had a point.

Trellani folded her arms. "Finally...I have been where you are. I have suffered and watched my soul bleed and my emotions darken, the small light I had left in my life eventually fading to nothing but bitter hate and a need for revenge. In many ways your initial statement about me was right. I am indeed a terrorist. Why else would I be here, in the arms of Cerberus?"

She paused. "But you do not have to venture down those dark tides with no goal. We cannot restore the light of your bondmate to you. But you can redeem yourself. Act to stem the abuses and horrors of your own government. Lead the fight against the Reapers, when they come. Help those of your friends who are still alive, who suffer or are hurt. The alternative is to throw away all the effort spent on bringing you back and turn your back on the fate of everyone."

She leaned back. "A failure of monumental proportions."

Shepard flinched. She wanted to sleep, to drink. She wanted to smash her head against a wall and fall into a boneless pile and cry, and she couldn't let herself do that.

She understood all too well what was being asked of her. She trusted the Illusive Man to do what was best for him, and whatever fucked up vision he had in his head of humanity. This Trellani was clearly damaged and had seen some things – that didn't mean she was being straight with her or that what came out of her mouth was the truth.

The Chambers woman seemed the most open, the most empathetic. She didn't shade what she said, but she looked upset to have to relate it all to Shepard. Maybe she was just faking – shrinks couldn't be trusted, after all.

It didn't matter. She had no illusions – if she didn't play along, they'd probably kill her and start over. Anyone who had the money and tech to bring the dead back to life wouldn't be interested in no for an answer.

Seconds ticked by, and Shepard licked her lips. They still felt off. Too soft. Too...perfect. She was always having chapped lips, and now they would never chap again.

"I need more answers. About what you fucking people did to me. On what I'd be expected to do. On … what I am going to be asked to do. Where my friends are." She stiffened. "And I want Tali here. Now. Before I do or say anything else."

Trellani traded a long glance with Chambers, who shrugged and spoke. "She's on her way now. Do you want to speak to her privately, or did you want me to stay?"

Shepard glanced around the room. "You expect me to believe you don't have cameras and microphones in this room?"

Chambers shook her head. "No, we do. But I do expect you to believe Tali is good enough to shut them off if you told her to...and that she certainly would rather follow your instructions than ours in that regard."

Shepard exhaled. "Hah. Then yeah, privacy please."

The two females got up and left, the door shutting behind them. Shepard lit another cigarette. She didn't trust the drink – and she needed a clear head anyway, even if her heart was heavy.

She hated her cybernetic eyes. They didn't hurt when she cried, just kept on working as if nothing was wrong. She tried to clear her head, wiping her treacherous eyes again, smoking and tapping her feet nervously.

The door opened, and a tall quarian woman stepped through. Shepard blinked. "Tali?"

The quarian touched a panel on her omni-tool, and the red-tinted faceplate changed to a transparent version, revealing Tali's alien, beautiful features. She had aged. Her eyes were wider, brighter, and her cheekbones shifted.

Her reik was now a dark black with hard red trim and swirling patterns of dark gray, wrapped in a different fashion around her body. She was taller, more curvy, and the leather-texture and black metallic bodysuit she wore looked somehow more sexualized, or just tighter. Heavy boots with a holster holding some kind of knives on either side dominated her lower body.

Her arm was cybernetics, heavy myomer muscle in black and silver, defiantly stamped with, to Shepard's horror, a Cerberus emblem. Tali finally spoke, her voice hesitant, deeper and more husky than Shepard remembered, but still hers.

"They really did it. Keelah. Sara..."

Shepard managed a weak smile."You grew up."

Tali gave a small start, and then her hands came together, one hand wrapping around her other wrist rather than wringing together as she used to. "I had to. It...it has been an ugly two years. More than two years. And I couldn't be a kid anymore."

Tali sat down carefully, still leaving her faceplate transparent. Shepard frowned. "Could you have done that before? With the faceplate?"

Tali shook her head. "It's a … it's something Jeff wanted." She sighed. "How do you...feel? I mean...oh what a stupid question. Babbling. Are you … okay? I mean I know you aren't but..." Tali trailed off, eyes seeking hers, and the worry was clear on her face.

She sighed. "No. I... Wait. Before we talk, I need you to do something. The Chambers woman said you could shutdown their cameras."

Tali sighed. "Ugh. These people are beyond paranoid. Yes, I can fix that much." She tapped her omni-tool, and the lights in the room flickered. "That should block them, for now. They may be able to see us, but they definitely can't hear us."

She paused. "So. Are you okay or not, Sara? Did they hurt you? I know you must be … confused. I would be."

Shepard shook her head. "No. I mean yes. Shit. I'm not hurt. I actually feel fine. It's just everything is so fucking … fucked. I'm...dead. But not dead. Liara is gone. All I did...everything. Everything is fucked. It feels like...yesterday. I was on top of the world, joking in the Normandy cockpit, sipping good coffee. Then fire. Then this."

She looked up. "I'm not making any sense, but nothing is making any sense to me. My world is ashes right now. And Cerberus..."

Tali nodded. "I can't imagine how you must feel. I'm so sorry, Shepard. I … I wasn't much help when we went to get you. I got in the way, got my arm blown off. If they hadn't had to cover me, maybe..."

Shepard held up a hand. "Don't, Tali. There's only one person responsible for this outrageous bullshit, and it's the fucking Broker. I'm going to pull his motherfucking spine out through his ass, then choke him with it. He did this. Not you. Don't beat yourself up."

Tali nodded. "I... well. You're a little late to stop that. I've learned a lesson from it, a sad and cruel one. But I'm happy you don't hate me."

Shepard sighed. "I don't know what I feel, Tali. I don't hate you. You're still the person I dragged into this bullshit. But you've certainly changed. Last time I saw you, you didn't sport that logo on your shoulder."

Tali's voice dropped a notch, and her hand crossed her chest, tracing the Cerberus hexagon. "Yes, well. My people have a saying. 'One follows where one is welcome.' Last time you saw me, my bosh'tet of a father hadn't tried to kill my husband or throw me in a jail cell for my choices in life."

Shepard's jaw dropped. "W-what?"

Tali folded her arms. "My father – Admiral Rael'Zorah – was displeased when we returned to the Flotilla – Jeff and I. The Alliance...threw us out. Said we were acting in a manner unbecoming to chase your body down and bring you back. General von Grath tried to cover for us. So did Jiong. Didn't help. They gave us less than honorable discharges and told us to get lost."

Shepard snarled, but Tali shrugged. "We had almost no money, and no where to go. So we went to the Flotilla. I had no choices, and neither did Jeff. I knew my father would not take us being together well, but I didn't think he'd..."

She closed her glowing eyes. "He...struck Jeff. Hard enough to … hurt him. Badly. He was going to kill him, and Admiral Han'Gerrel tried to stop him. He broke Han'Gerrel's arm and was going to shoot Jeff to death on the bridge before I shot him first."

Shepard's eyes widened more. "You shot your dad?"

Tali's slender features behind the mask twisted into a smile. "I sure did. Marines hauled me off, hauled Jeff off. I was tried. For treason. Assault. Attempted murder. The Flotilla was in an uproar. The trial..."

She trailed off, and clenched a fist. Shepard watched anger and fury mar the gentle beauty of her friend's face, the eyes burning with hatred, and then Tali sighed, and closed her eyes. "I was stripped of my rank, my Family, and exiled. Jeff was beaten, they stole the eezo from his braces. And they dumped us on the Citadel."

Shepard clenched her own fist, but was careful not to fuck up her chair any more than she already had. "I knew your dad was a first-class dick, but this..."

Tali sighed. "I … I don't know. I've had a lot of time to think about it. He was under a lot of pressure – the first world my people tried to colonize turned out badly, and he was... not acting like himself. And I think in his way he loved me, but his love was not the kind of love a father should have. He couldn't take the idea of losing me, like he lost my mother. His love was...it was twisted, Sara. Unhealthy. He wanted me to be safe even if that meant making me miserable, and what kind of love is that?"

She shrugged, running her hand along her thigh. "And when I told him I loved Jeff, he just lost it completely. He wanted to tell me who to marry, who to bear children with. How to live my life. How to think. I've hung around you too long, I think – my answer to him was 'fuck that shit.' He didn't take that well."

Despite herself, Shepard found herself smiling. "Good for you, Tali. What happened after the fucker threw you out? How did you end up with Cerberus?"

Tali looked at Shepard directly. "The Illusive Man rescued us. Got us off the Citadel. Cleaned up my … injuries. Replaced my cyberware, got me a new suit. Got us a clean room, paid for Jeff to have operations, proper medicine, therapy. Got me what I needed to remake braces. Gave him a chance to fly, put me in charge of …" She trailed off, and then smiled wickedly, displaying sharp teeth. "A little surprise for you when you woke up, eventually. A good surprise."

Shepard leaned back. "So he saved your lives. I guess. Do you trust him?"

Tali immediately shook her head. "The very first thing he tells you when you work for him is that you shouldn't trust him. You should believe in him to do what is best for humanity, then those aliens who are not hostile to humanity's survival. You should believe in him to level with you and tell you the truth. But he told me – and Jeff – that if it came down to it, he'd sacrifice us both in a second."

Shepard nodded. "Okay. But he lives up to his word?"

Tali nodded. "Yes. He's a sneaky bosh'tet , but he also rarely if ever promises anything. And if he does, he always follows through with it – and not just the letter of what he said, but the spirit of it. He's not a good man, I don't think. He probably wants to be. He's really, really good at controlling his body language, but there are times I've seen him and he is sad. Or upset. Or angry, I think, with himself."

Shepard arched an eyebrow. "So he's not just some nut who hates aliens?"

Tali smiled. "The rumor is he's been sleeping with Matriarch Trellani for years and years. He almost never goes anywhere without her."

Shepard was surprised. The leader of a pack of racist nuts banging an asari just didn't compute. "Fine. Does he have other aliens working for him beside you?"

Tali sighed. "There is one other quarian...another exile, Kiala'Raan, who I brought in. Other than us and Trellani, no. But he's not ..." She paused. "He sat Jeff and I down one day and explained why Cerberus was so anti-alien. About some of the things the Salarian Union and the Asari Republic were doing, and how much they were messing with the Turian Hierarchy. And he showed me things...Council discussions he'd gotten a hold of, from centuries back, where the asari wrote my people off on purpose, hoping we would all get killed! They were going to try and take over our worlds and steal our technology, after the geth destroyed us."

Shepard sighed. "Shocking."

Tali shrugged. "Jeff doesn't trust him...but that's okay. He thinks Jeff is funny. And as long as he keep having him test new designs, Jeff is … pretty happy. We're both happy. I won't say that just because he treats us well you should trust him. I know I'm ...um, biased?" She smiled sadly. "And I won't say that everyone in Cerberus is wild about aliens either. But not a single one of them, even the nasty ones like Minsta, are really bad people. I think they're frustrated and scared."

Shepard thought about that, then shook her head. "That doesn't excuse the shit they did."

Tali nodded. "I fully agree. But this Cerberus doesn't do that anymore. At least, not that I've seen. It's all spying and finances and things like that. They are keeping a pretty low profile." She shrugged. "And after some of what the Illusive Man told us and showed us..."

She fingered the insignia again and lifted her chin. "They didn't make me wear this. I asked for it. Like I said...I'm happy here."

Shepard nodded. At least two of her friends were okay, then. "That's...that's good, Tali." She exhaled. "Now. Should I listen to him?"

Tali didn't say anything for almost ten seconds before slowly nodding. "I think, Sara, if he went to all the trouble of bringing you back from the dead – and the other things he's doing, in hopes you'll work with him – you can at least listen. He may be treating Jeff and I nice just to have me feel like you can trust him...but .. I don't know."

The quarian woman folded her arms. "It would be like him to be nice to us just so you think he's worth trusting, if you get what I'm saying. But it would also be like the Illusive Man to actually be wanting to help. I don't know all the details of what went on the past, but … I did some digging. The Systems Alliance used to be in charge of Cerberus...and gave him his orders. I think if he's really evil, I'd have seen it by now."

Tali looked at her. "Whatever you decide, Jeff and I will have your back either way. When he told us what he was planning, we demanded that. You needed people to be here when you … woke up, that you could trust. I'm in this for you – Jeff and I both are."

Shepard smiled. "I get it, Tali. And … thank you." She leaned back, thinking.

She knew her mind wasn't working right, at the moment. Her emotions were a mess, she was angry, upset, weepy, and, to her own surprise, more than a little scared. Death, after all, was supposed to be it.

Goddamn it, Death, even when you take me to third base you fuck up and prematurely ejaculate. I'm done with your ass.

Shepard suspected the Illusive Man didn't employ Tali and Joker out of the sheer, baby-snuggling goodness of his heart. He wanted them to feel grateful, and use that gratitude as a way to convince her to listen to whatever shit he had planned. On the other hand, she couldn't imagine Jeff and Tali just going along with this nut if he really was some kind of terrorist tool.

But why bring her back at all? God only knew how much it cost to bring her back. And yet he'd chosen to do so. So he had some specific, clear goal in mind for her, and she only had to figure out if she wanted to listen to it, or see if she could punch through this armaglass wall as easily as she crushed the chair handle.

Given that it was the fucking Illusive Man, she guessed if she tried to escape it would fail, but damn it would feel good. She flexed her hand, wondering what they had done to her, and then looked up at Tali.

"We'll...talk later. Go tell Chambers I have a couple of questions for her."

Tali nodded, blanking her faceplate. "I will. It ...it's good to see you up, Sara. I know this sounds selfish...but I .. I missed you."

Shepard swallowed and smiled. "Well...I'm here now. We'll see how it all ends up."

O-TWCD-O

It took about ten minutes for Kelly Chambers to return. Shepard paced the small room, and finally broke down and had a small drink.

It was scotch – Vindrasian, if she remembered correctly. From Terra Nova. Anderson's favorite. She scowled as she recalled what Chambers and Trellani had told her in their explanations.

The idea that she had been dead for two years was hard to get around, to deal with. She didn't feel like she'd died. She remembered the pain, the burning, the going black. But there was no angelic choir or burning hell pit. No memories of any kind.

It was basically as if she'd dozed off and woken back up. Except she wasn't sure what the hell they'd done to her. She wasn't educated enough to follow some all of Chamber's complex explanations, but she got the gist.

They'd tricked her body into thinking it wasn't dead, stuffed her full of crap that made her go, then slapped a picture-perfect set of skin cloned up from her real skin over it. Except it wasn't quite skin. Something else.

Her body was some freakish thing, and she imagined she could hear gears grinding away inside her. She knew it was a silly thing, but she felt that way emotionally. The scary part was that physically she felt fine. Normal, even. If they'd lied and said she magically survived the crash and they did some plastic surgery on her, she wouldn't have known the difference.

Well, except for crushing a solid steel armrest like a tin can. That had possibilities, both scary and exhilarating, but she was ambivalent about being turned into some kind of zombie robot thing.

She couldn't really verify or disprove what they'd done to her until she got away from this pack of lunatics and to a medical facility, but that raised it's own problems. She was dead. She'd been dead. If she just showed up in Alliance space, she wouldn't be surprised if they shot her dead on the spot.

She was trying very hard not to think about Liara, and keep her anger, frustration and fear going. If she sat down and really thought about all the ramifications of this, she felt like she would just go mad. She had to be tactical. Channel Ahern. Be fucking unpredictable.

Anderson was basically locked up in a loony bin. The details, they didn't know, and maybe it didn't matter. Ash was alive, but on some kind of classified mission from the Alliance. Humanity's Spectre was now Delacor, of all the fucking people. He worked solo, his last Spectre partner had gotten killed by a meteor strike.

She resisted an urge to giggle madly at that. She'd known that fucker was walking bad luck, and there was the proof.

They weren't sure where Adams was, but Pressly was in a hospital on Dirth, tended to by his family, suffering from some minor brain damage and physically crippled. The Alliance had paid for cybernetic reconstruction but Pressly had declined, deciding he'd had enough of service. She found that strange, and wondered what the real story was.

Her own status was actually quite interesting. Her Family – Shepard-T'Soni – still was technical extant, as once a Family was created it was not usually removed from the Honor Roster. There was talk in some corners of 'adopting' someone into the name of Shepard (and of course, dropping the T'Soni part). The small list of weapon designs she'd given to Mayor Inman had paid off handsomely with the creation of a small weapons firm called Shepard Memorial Industries, owned – to her mix of amusement and disgust – by her old weapons officer, Colms.

Chambers didn't know exactly where most of the rest of her people were, except that none of them had died recently. She told Shepard that Von Grath had quietly retired away to some outer colony world with Chakwas of all people, dropping out of the public eye while his father handed the Family over to a younger brother. President Windsor had been forced out of office from medical complications, grief and scandal. Turned out Eliza wasn't his niece, but his daughter from an affair, carefully smuggled into the family by his brother and raised as his own.

Shepard wasn't surprised that bitch al-Jiliani had broken that story. Windsor had a breakdown after Eliza died from more complications of her heavy wounds, and he never recovered physically or mentally. The Coleman Administration had collapsed when Saracino's girl-rape fetish came up – the bastard shot himself, but the Commissars burned and beheaded the corpse anyway.

The new administration had mostly been a compromise, but as time went on they were more and more isolationist. The new Terra Firma was a lot slicker, claiming they wanted 'peaceful co-existence' but 'cultural respect', while quietly sponsoring all kinds of underground terrorist activity.

The geth war had raged on for more than a year after her death, culminating in a massive battle barely four months back involving over five thousand ships. The geth base at a place called Haestrom had been shattered, and the geth splintered. But the Council losses were heavy and instead of going into finish them off, the Council had backed away, licking their wounds.

Goddamned cowards. The turians and humans had led every battle, the asari claiming they were 'keeping peace' in the outer Rim and along the borders of the Traverse.

All in all, the galaxy was about the same mess she'd left it in when she died. She was hardly surprised by that shit.

Chambers finally came back in, carrying a larger data-padd, and sat down. "I'm sorry for the delay...had to talk to a few people."

Shepard sat back down in her own chair, stubbing out her cigarette. "Whatever."

The young-looking psychologist smiled. "Ms. Zorah said you had a couple of questions for me. I hope I can be of service in answering them."

Shepard folded her arms, and crossed her legs. "Yeah. First, when are you letting me out of here?"

Chambers' expression became more serious. "That depends on you. As we told you, your physical strength and speed were augmented in your rebirth. The room is specially designed to contain you in case you get … well, violent. Not that I think that you will – but we like to take precautions, especially with such a traumatic set of events as you've awoken to."

Chambers bit her lip and continued. "To more fully answer your question, you'll be released as soon as you have a conversation with my boss. The Illusive Man."

Shepard snorted. "And why in fuck would I want to talk to him? 'Hey, thanks asshole, for bringing me back to life only to find everything I worked for is shit and the only person I loved is dead.' Doesn't sound like his speed."

Chambers sighed. "He has expended a great deal of effort to bring you back, and all he wants is for you to listen to him and hear him out for a small amount of time. Once you've done that and made your choices, you're free to go."

Shepard narrowed her eyes. "Made my choices?"

Kelly nodded. "Shepard, I've been instructed – and I have always advised – that we are not to lie to you, ever. He's going to ask you to work with us, to solve the colonist disappearances, to help fight the Reaper threat. The only two outcomes of that is you work with us, or you don't."

Chambers gave her a worried look. "If you choose not to work with us, then everyone here will evacuate onto several shuttles. You'll be routed to a hangar bay with a different shuttle, and you'll leave after our shuttles FTL away. The shuttle you will be provided has enough fuel – and speed – to get you to either Alliance space or to the Citadel. What you do after that point, if you don't want to work with us, is really up to you."

Shepard shook her head. "You expect me to believe if I say no he's just going to let me go?"

Chambers shrugged. "What you believe or don't believe is nothing in my control, Ms. Shepard. I can't say that your suspicion is unreasonable, but … if we just wanted to dominate you, we could have put some kind of limbic system override, or control chip, or something in your head. We could have messed with your memory or something. We didn't. The Illusive Man wants you as an ally, and that's not going to work if you look us as hostiles."

Shepard frowned. That still sounded crazy, to spend God knew how much on someone who could flip you off and throw up deuces. "And if I chose to work with you ...people?"

Chambers gave her a smile. "Then the discussion would be on what demands you had to agree to such a thing."

Shepard arched an eyebrow. "Demands?"

Chambers laughed. "I told him that you were unlikely to trust Cerberus – nor did the fact we brought you back to life win us any points in your head. I know he has plans for you, ideas – but he's also prepared to meet whatever requirements you have to feel like you can actually work with us." Her voice quieted a little. "Not like the Alliance or Citadel would welcome you back with open arms."

Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose. "Yeah, I thought about that."

Chambers made a motion with her hands."But we're not going to force you to work for us, that isn't our style. We can't just bark orders at you and expect you to fall in line, or throw you into space with a ship and a bug net and tell you to stop the Collectors."

Shepard found herself trying not to smile at the phrasing Chambers used. "Fine. And once I've talked to him, you let me out of this fancy cage, what's to stop me from killing you all?"

Chambers eyes met hers. Shepard was impressed to see despite more than a flicker of fear, there was also pity and determination there. "Nothing. No one involved in your resurrection is innocent, Shepard. We've done things that I'm sure you might see as criminal. We can't stop you from leaving without alienating you, and if you choose to try and deceive us and kill the people here, we'll fight – but probably lose. Even with no biotics and no weapons, what we've done to you is enough you could kill most of us bare handed."

Chambers exhaled. "But the numbers we've run, Ms. Shepard, tell us that you're the best shot we have at stopping the Collectors, at stopping the Reapers, at stopping the Broker. We can't get the Alliance to listen. We can't get the Council to listen. The Broker is convincing everyone the Reaper threat is far in the future. If you don't help, we'll be dead when the Reapers hit us anyway."

Chambers leaned back. "And personally? God, what kind of repressed and ungrateful bitch are you to kill people who brought you back from the dead without even hearing them out? Toss all the death threats you want, Ms. Shepard. Killing US won't bring your wife back, or Mr. Vakarian, or Ms. Nasan."

Shepard gritted her teeth. "You've got nerve."

Chambers shrugged. "Yeah, well. You're don't like listening to bullshit, so why give it to you?"

O-TWCD-O

The Illusive Man, Trellani and Miranda watched from another room as Chambers fenced words with Shepard.

"She really is good at this, Jack." Trellani's voice was rich with amusement, and he nodded.

"It helps when you have a complete psychological profile on who you're dealing with, and the manifests from the gray-box Even so, Shepard isn't a simple woman to understand, and Chambers has to punch her buttons and then deflect her anger."

He inhaled on his cigarette, as the two women began shouting at each other, and then smiled widely as Shepard punched the armaglass barrier. A faint spiderweb of cracks was the only effect.

Miranda looked alarmed. "I don't think this is the method we should be using...antagonizing Shepard -"

Harper shook his head. "She's not antagonizing Shepard, Miranda. She's letting her blow off anger, while carefully steering the conversation. Shepard has always been someone who can become very angry very fast, and has worked hard to control that. Chambers is merely draining it away."

He put out his cigarette. "I'd better get ready. You'll see, Miranda. This is going better than I expected." He paused. "Still, make sure the secondary kinetic barrier is in place. I would hate to be killed by my own handiwork."

O-TWCD-O

"That doesn't fucking justify the shit your people did in the past!"

Chambers rolled her eyes. "You know what? Fuck you. You want to claim you're so righteous, fine with me. But don't sit here and defend that pack of assholes running the Alliance. Cerberus isn't the ones creating monster humans, deliberately getting our own people killed, or selling Marines up the river. The things we did bad in the past are in the past."

Shepard glared. "So that means I should just cooperate with your pack of lunatics? Sing campfire songs, pretend all is fucking well? You could have been involved with the shit we found in your base for all I know, and now you want me to trust you assholes?"

Chambers folded her arms. "You don't know shit about me, Shepard. You don't know shit about anything. You did what you were told and had your eyes closed most of your life. And even when you had them opened for you – by information WE gave Kyle – you kept letting the Alliance lead you around by the nose."

She stood. "And now that we brought you back, you blame us for the fact that your life is a wreck. It's not our fault. We're doing what we can to fix it."

Shepard trembled, then looked away. Chamber's voice finally softened. "I understand your anger and frustration. Being told the only way to make things better is to trust a group with the past Cerberus has is probably not easy. I won't lie. I won't tell you that we are suddenly in love with aliens. But we're not in this just to protect humanity at this point. If the Reapers show up, everyone dies."

Shepard glared at her. "I think I know that a little better than you do. I have a goddamned movie in my head of it happening to the Protheans."

Chambers sighed and nodded. "I know. That's why you have to work with us – even if you don't like the idea. It won't turn you into a criminal. If we do something you find objectionable, then I know we'll end up paying for it."

The door on Chamber's half of the room chimed.

Shepard glanced up, and Chambers frowned. "One moment, please."

She went through the door, and Shepard turned to face the door, folding her arms, placing her weight on one leg and frowning.

A moment later, a familiar face walked through the door, a glass of brandy in one hand, lit cigarette in the other. He sat down on one of the chairs, setting his drink down on the small table, and then looked at her, the blue circles in his eyes glowing faintly.

"Hello, Shepard."

She forced down her anger, glaring. "So, you finally showed up. Your goddamned shrink pissed me the hell off."

Jack Harper nodded. "She does that, from time to time. She's very passionate about her work, and I think you upset her. She admires you greatly, but sometimes she is not very willing to examine her own biases."

He puffed on his cigarette. "But that's not important. It's time you and I had a face to face talk."

She gestured to the armaglass. "Yeah, with me sealed in this cell."

Harper took a deep breath, then touched his omni-tool. The kinetic barrier in the archway separating the two halves of the room shut off. "Bring the ashtray with you, please."

For two long seconds, Shepard contemplated crossing into the room and smashing her fist into the face of Jack Harper. She could feel her body responding. She knew she could probably move fast enough to do it before any kind of defenses could stop her.

He was testing her. The thought made her angrier for a moment, and then she forced it down. She picked up the ashtray and her own cigarettes, and walked through the archway.

She walked up to him, staring down as he sat in the chair, then with a grimace sat down herself, placing the ashtray on the table.

He smiled, and licked his lips. "Thank you. For not crushing my face...and the ashtray."

She stared at him. "You are the most insane sonofabitch I've ever seen."

His smile became almost a smirk. "I have a bad habit of gambling. I rarely do so with my own life, but there are times exceptions must be made, in order to make a point. This is one such time."

He dumped his ashes. "We don't have a control chip or any other method of stopping you. Right now, you can decide we need to go our separate ways. That isn't a trick. I need you either committed to working with me, or this entire endeavor has been pointless."

She narrowed her eyes. "Then why not just fuck with my head? Edit my memories?"

Harper sighed. "We will not be able to keep your existence a secret forever. At some point, you will be interacting with the Alliance, with the Council. They will interrogate you, examine you. You have to be able to have the free will to pass that, and the only way you can do so is by us not tampering with who you are."

He sipped his drink. "I don't need an obedient minion. I have enough of those. Nor do I need someone who is forced into servitude, who hates me and has no choices. That always ends up backfiring. What I need is an advocate. An ally, who will eventually bring more to the table than I put into it."

Shepard folded her arms. "And just how much did you put into it? Bringing me back?"

He met her gaze. "The cost of bringing you back alone came to six billion, four hundred million, seven thousand ninety two credits. It also cost us three suicides and two people going quietly insane, and another billion and a half in related costs."

The numbers washed over her. "That's … you could have created an entire fleet and army for what it cost to bring me back!"

He nodded. "Perhaps. Of course, building such and keeping it hidden would be very difficult. We have no association with the Systems Alliance, and thus can't hide in the open. And the truth of the matter is that a pure military force of that nature would be of no use to me. I have a target and no way to hit them, I have enemies and no locations to attack. What I need is not force, but information."

She frowned. "I'm not a spy, either."

He sat his drink on the table and adjusted his position in his chair. "A fact I'm well aware of. But you are tenacious and you can put together facts when you hunt down a target. You brought down Saren and Benezia, with remarkably little help from much of anyone, after all."

He took a drag on his cigarette. "Most importantly, Shepard, you are a symbol. You can't be corrupted or bribed. You won't tolerate criminality or injustice. An army of goons is merely the extended hand of their master. You working with me implies that Cerberus' goals are benign."

Shepard snorted. "You haven't convinced me of doing that, not even close. I'm glad you saved Joker and Tali, and I'll admit the things the Alliance and Council are doing sound pretty fucking stupid. But you must have your own badasses who could have checked into this Collector bullshit Trellani is telling me about."

Harper's smile was smaller. "I do, after a fashion. But they lack some of your skills. I have a skilled general. I have men who can assassinate, or assault. I have intelligence agents, psychological warfare specialists, and money to throw at problems. What I don't have is a leader who can bring these pieces together."

He pointed at her. "You are unique, Shepard. Not only for what you accomplished and represent, but what you have experienced. You faced and spoke with a Reaper, and defeated its plans. The fact the Broker had you killed tells me they fear you."

He leaned back. "And I will admit there are things you offer that I don't have. Once you bring down the Broker and the Collectors, and the Alliance and Council have no choice but to wake up and face reality, then your Spectre status and your nobility will be useful once more. Your heroism in stopping Saren, in stopping Balak, in defending humanity, has not been forgotten."

She pulled a grimace. "That's worth billions of credits?"

The Illusive Man shrugged. "I have more available. But I'll admit, the primary value you have is that you are unexpected. No one can imagine you have returned from the dead. You can operate with the knowledge and skills you have and the Broker can't prepare for it. His plans – and those of who he is working for – are predicated on you being dead. The value of shock and surprise will give us an advantage as well."

She narrowed her eyes. "You'll pardon me if that still seems a stretch. Two years and billions of credits, and yet you don't even know if I'll say yes or no? That's a hell of a gamble."

He chuckled. "I don't think you'll turn me down once you actually hear my offer, Shepard."


End file.
